Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
Maybe Ben had an overactive imagination, but he didn't like the sound of someone getting fired from the Auror's office for 'some stint of Auror bullshit.' There was just too much that could fall into that category that Ben wasn't really comfortable with, much less comfortable picturing happening to him. Aurors could already do all sorts of things that normal citizens weren't allowed to do, so what did you have to do as an auror that was such an abuse of power, they fired you for it? Clearly, this needed some investigating, and soon — certainly before he did any more messing around with Annabelle Scrimgeour.

Unfortunately, the average citizen did not have access to the Ministry employee files. Either Aldous or Roman might have, but asking for their help in this matter would have required 1) admitting that he needed help, and 2) admitting (or at least implying) that he had been screwing around with Annabelle Scrimgeour, neither of which he really wanted them in the loop on. The next best thing to getting the help of his brothers, of course, was pretending to be his brothers in order to help himself, which was what had seen Ben kicking around Knockturn Alley last week seeking a vial of polyjuice potion.

Roman would probably have been the more logical choice to go digging through old employment records, but unless he was going to poison him to keep him out of work for a day (which seemed a little extreme, even given the circumstances) there was no way to guarantee that he could navigate the Ministry without running into Roman, which would have gotten him in a good deal of trouble and brought the whole thing out in the open in a less than favorable light. Aldous, on the other hand, had to take trips out of the country for his job, which presented the perfect opportunity.

Getting a hair from a house that he had regular access to was no trouble at all; asking some casual questions about Aldous' schedule to the household staff wasn't much more. He picked a date in the middle of his brother's upcoming trip, so that he could feasibly tell anyone who asked he was home early — while avoiding, he hoped, any chance of Aldous actually coming home early and ruining the whole thing.

The hardest part was remembering to use this damn cane. Hopefully, he wouldn't have to be here long.

Open to: anyone who might be in the DIMC. Special invite to Charles Macmillan